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VIA Releases The Dual-Core Nano X2 CPU

01-05-2011, 03:40 PM

Phoronix: VIA Releases The Dual-Core Nano X2 CPU

While VIA isn't working on their Linux graphics support, they are continuing to design new hardware. For the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, VIA Technologies has just released their Nano X2 Dual-Core CPU...

Comment

The problem with Nanos is that they are severely overpriced - at least on the local market here. A low-end Athlon X2 can be had for less and is generally better supported.

I think that the price for Nanos is normal to be bigger as it is for a different market. Anyway, this policy did not serve them well as Atom come to market. The problem for me with Nano is not price, but as Phoronix shows: low support, bad final products (Samsung NC20 is not by far a netbook killer, and is similarly priced with a Atom + Ion, but the graphic counter part is not a winning strategy, and with today's AMD dual core CPU + decent GPU, will be a one-two punch blow for VIA IMHO).
At the end I really think that Via will still be here to stay, but it's winning decisions in the past: "decent" performance with less than 10 watts of power was good in year 2002, but is not enough for year 2010. At least no final product motivates me to buy a VIA based system.

Comment

I still can't find a Nano 3000-based system anywhere. They seem to be pushing the same strategy with the X2 - selling only to OEMs and excluding hobbyists and individuals.
If VIA makes the X2-based boards/systems available, I might consider one as long as 1) it's not too expensive and 2) it has a PCI-e slot for a low-end Radeon card.

Comment

I was rather excited about the Nano before it was even first introduced 3 years ago, and even back then they claimed they had plans for a move to a 45nm process and the introduction of dual-core models "soon"...

Here it is three years later, and AFAICT it doesn't even have the shared cache which they claimed it would have when launching the nano, meanwhile they've more or less just sat back while intel stole their market niche right out from under them with the atom and completely overrun the netbook market which the nano should have been perfect for...

I still have interest in the nano, just not much hope for it anywmore.